A full week had now gone by since the last day of school and my brand-new journal still sat on my nightstand, unused. Next to it sat my vibrator, which had been getting far too much use since that night with Rett.
I wasn't even bothering to put it away anymore. I didn't see the point because as soon as I started to think about that night I needed to take it out again.
That morning, I woke up with the sun and rolled over to see the vibrator glaring at me, accusing. I reached for it, ready to relive the memory — how he'd shattered me completely and then just quietly left before sunrise before anything got awkward or weird — and then let my hand fall away. "No," I said aloud. "This is getting ridiculous."
We hadn't talked since it happened. No chance meetings at my father's bar, even though I'd been working there nightly in the hopes of running into him. No phone calls, no texts. I felt like I was dangling at the edge of a cliff, but instead of pulling myself back up again, I was summoning the courage to throw myself into the abyss.
I sat up, full of this restless energy that could not be denied.
"I think I will go for that hike," I told Mr. Stevens. He was perched at the top of my bed, staring up at the ceiling and a cricket that had been driving him crazy for days. "Did you hear me?" I repeated, nonsensically. "I'm going to hike the falls today. The weather is supposed to be good, not too hot. Perfect hiking weather," I said contentedly. Then let out huge sigh.
I looked over to see that my cat was staring at me judgmentally. "Don't look at me like that," I chided. "Sometimes you have to try things a bunch of times before you figure out you like them," I said loftily. "You watch, I bet you today I'm going to find out that I'm totally a hiking type person."
Mr. Stevens blinked contemptuously, then turned back to stare at the wily cricket.
"I'll show you," I said haughtily. "What do you know? You're just a cat."
Mr. Stevens leaped down the bed and stalked from the room like he was insulted. I sighed and then followed after him. "I'm not saying sorry," I told him as I stepped around him on the staircase. "I have to go pack my backpack."
In the kitchen, I opened my pantry door to take stock of my provisions. "Why don't I have any trail mix?" I asked the air. My cat followed me into the kitchen, the insults forgotten since I was near his food bowl, and sat down next to it, tail swishing expectantly, but I ignored him for a moment.
I picked up a bag of potato chips, an unopened one in a strange flavor that I promised myself I'd try, and then put it back down again. I reached for the old package of Girl Scout cookies, the ones with the coconut that I hated but was suckered into buying from one of my students, then wrinkled my nose and set them back down again. I pawed through the drift of unfinished packages, all the things I'd bought to try and then never did, disgusted with myself.
"Why am I not more organized? Why don't I have a pantry full of healthy staples?" I asked, quoting a food blogger I followed but never tried any recipes from.
Why was the idea of doing something always more enticing than the actual doing?
With a sigh, I pulled out the bag of weirdly flavored potato chips and inspected the contents. "Well," I said as Mr. Stevens wound on his way around my ankles. "If anything, it'll give me a burst of quick energy, right?"
He let out a hopeful little chirpy meow and I rolled my eyes. "Okay here. Ingrate." I poured a cupful of food into his bowl and brushed my hand along his back a couple times, scratching down at the base of his tail like he liked. "Don't burn the house down," I told him and stood back up again, straightening my shoulders. "I'll be back before dark."
I started out of my house. The entrance to the falls was about a half-mile outside of town. All I needed to do was follow the creek and it would be a pretty easy shortcut. I'd scouted this block out when I first bought my house, with every intention of doing that walk daily. I was very proud of myself that I was finally about to do it now.
But when I started walking, instead of the left out of my front yard that would lead me to the banks of Reckless Creek, I made a right.
"The hell am I doing?" I asked the air.
There was no denying it, I was walking into town.
"Okay, change of plans then I guess," I said as I crossed the still undeveloped field before picking up the road at the place Main Street opened up and out. "I'm still going for a walk though, it counts."
I ambled slowly once I reached the main block of shops. I peered into the window of each one, searching for something. What it was, I couldn't exactly tell you, but they didn't have it, and I kept walking.
I walked until I turned off the main street at the top of the hill. Up here was where the nicer houses stood, the old Victorians built by the early settlers in town. Most of them had been given over to bed-and-breakfasts or historical museums, but there were still a few that were privately owned.
One in particular, with its slate gray exterior and beautiful red-tiled roof was where I was headed now.
He was out there in the front yard, pushing a lawnmower. So he didn't hear me, and I could just watch him.
I'd seen him in a suit, I'd seen him in slacks and polos, but the sight of Everett McCabe shirtless, skin already tanned golden, dark hair glinting in the sun was one I wouldn't soon forget. I stared wantonly, drinking him in, only slightly angry that his mirrored shades obscured those bright green eyes, because the rest of him was so enthralling.
He reached the front of his house and turned the mower in a sharp corner, picking up the line again precisely as he pushed parallel to where he just mowed.
Now there was no way he'd avoid seeing me.
Over the din of the lawnmower, there was another noise of an approaching car with a very bad motor. I turned to see a car full of tourists — twenty-something guys, probably from one of the nearby colleges — slowing down.
The driver stretched his hand out of his open window as the other guys hooted and laughed. I winced when he beckoned to me, "Come on over here baby, you wanna ride?"
"I've got something for you to ride!" one of the guys in the back hooted.
I wrinkled my nose, ready to give him the finger, when I suddenly realized that the lawnmower had quieted.
"What the fuck do they want?" Everett said over my shoulder.
I turned to see him next to me. He stood so tall that he obscured the sun, and suddenly I was in his shadow, and for some reason that made me feel oddly protected.
"Keep driving," Rett called.
I swallowed hard. None of the guys I'd dated would've stood there and faced down catcallers. They would have either hissed at me to get inside, or blamed me for wearing shorts that were too short in the first place. Aside from my father and Callum, Rett was the first guy who'd ever actively stood up for me like this.
The driver seemed to pale. He made a rude gesture but hit the gas and continued down the historic street.
Rett watched until the car was out of sight and the noise of the motor had died away. Then he turned back to look at me. "That douche bag would have no idea what to do with you if he got you," he said quietly. But I do, he didn't need to say. Because I already knew it.
I turned to look at him, and it occurred to me that all the times I'd seen Rett shirtless, there had been no natural light. Right now, I could see him in the full blazing light of the sun. His smooth chest was on display, those little brown nipples just at the right height for me to bite. His chest was smooth and unmarked, but for a scar here and there. The torso of a guy who wasn't afraid to work hard.
I blinked and looked away.
"It's good to see you again," Rett said.
I looked back at him, strangely relieved that he didn't ask why I was there. Hell, I had no idea why I was there other than I felt the need to be.
He nodded towards my backpack. "Headed somewhere else?"
I looked behind me like I'd forgotten it was there, and I kind of had. "No."
"Would you like to come in?"
"Sure."
Rett gestured for me to go in first. It was strange how the fact that he was such a gentleman was somehow not at odds with the way he'd treated my body Saturday night. The two opposing forces that made up Rett McCabe fit together in perfect harmony.
As I mounted his front steps, he rested his hand in the small of my back, guiding and leading me with a gentle, yet possessive motion that had me blushing immediately. Heat gathered just under his touch. My skin was a live wire already.
I could no longer deny why I'd walked here, and even if I could deceive myself, there was no deceiving my body. It craved that danger he'd promised me.
I'd come here to find out the secrets he was keeping.